Fellowship & Fairydust

Notes: The following is my loose retelling of the 14th century alliterative Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the narrative of which was reworked by me under the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord Dunsany, and G.R.R. Martin in order to make it coherent with another medieval poem of the Gawain cycle, The Marriage of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, so to fictitiously restore what scholars J.R. Hulbert and Jessie Weston reconstructed to have been the original Gawain narrative, i.e. a Fairy Mistress story.

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The air was filled with the bitter smell of ashes and cinders, and the Trojan could almost taste it on his tongue. 

“The taste of betrayal”, he said to himself, because he still had a conscience, or at least he would like to think so. Among thousands of men, women, and children massacred and butchered by the Greeks, many of them were relatives, friends, or at least acquaintances of his, but this had not prevented him from selling their lives and their city to the enemy. Now there they lay, along the streets of the burning Troy, beheaded, pierced, mutilated, carbonized. Why had he done it? For his son, he would tell himself. Because the Gods had shown him a bright destiny in his dreams, provided Troy lost the war. But was any of those the real reason? Perhaps he was just evil, he considered.

However, his thoughts were soon interrupted by the arrival of a Greek patrol of twelve men. He showed them his safe-conduct, but their leader, a harsh man named Kratylos, thought it was not enough. 

“Aeschylos, Nymphaios, take him down to the Gates. Commander Amphitryon will judge his case”.

“Aye, Sir”, they replied, then disarmed him and took him, each by one arm, on the street descending to the Outer Walls, a street they called Lithostrota because it was the first to have been fully paved, many years earlier. 

“You cannot… We have an agreement! You saw it! King Menelaos himself signed it! You saw it!” he complained, but he was already being carried away.

Commander Amphitryon was a terrifying man. Bald, with a long grey beard, demonic eyes in which one could swear to see flames even if the city was not on fire, he had a reputation of being merciless that his appearance certainly did not contradict. 

“Count Aeneas, you said?” Amphitryon teased him, as though they were playing some cruel game. “So, you betrayed your King, your city, your friends and comrades, your relatives… and now I should let you go with your family, untouched, and with a rich reward, is that right?” 

Aeneas sighed: “That is the agreement. Menelaos, your King, signed it himself”. 

“And the agreement you mention was taken by Captain Kratylos, right?” 

“Yes!” Amphitryon unsheathed his sword: “But, even if that was true, why should I let a traitor like you go freely in the world, to perpetrate who knows which mischief at the expense of who knows whom?” 

The Commander had come so close to him he was spitting on his face as he shouted, and Aeneas had to close his eyes. 

“You would rather close your eyes than face your conscience, would you not? I can satisfy you! I will carve your eyes out of your skull, you Trojan scum!” Amphitryon yelled, but: “You will certainly not”, a firm voice stated. 

Amphitryon turned the other way, the sword still in his hand, and saw General Odysseus before him. 

“Count Aeneas was key to the success of our cause, putting an end to the long war, and he and his family are free to go with as much gold as they can carry unhelped. Nymphaios, release him immediately! Instead, you and I, Amphitryon, will have to talk”. 

Amphitryon spat on the ground, then followed General Odysseus to be rebuked, while Aeneas thanked all the Gods of Mount Olympos within his mind. “Your offspring will rule the world, from the Springs of River Nile to the Stone Circle of Merlin, from the Pillars of Herakles to the Gates of the Earthly Paradise”, the unnamed Goddess from his dreams reminded him.

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